Generative poster system, p5.js

Jali

Jali

Jali

Client

Self-Initiated

Year

2026

Role

Designer & Developer

About the project

I’ve always been drawn to jali, the carved stone lattices in Mughal architecture. They’re intricate and geometric, and they change how you see whatever’s behind them. Women’s rights is something I care about deeply, and I wanted to find a way to make the numbers feel personal instead of distant. So I built a generative poster system in p5.js. Each poster takes the jali as its visual language and grows a lattice for one country: Afghanistan, Poland, the US, India, Kenya, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The pattern is shaped by World Bank Women, Business and the Law scores, and real headlines and photographs sit behind it, so every poster holds both the data and the people it stands for. Putting the US and Poland next to Afghanistan and Iran was important to me. It’s easy to think of these issues as happening somewhere else, but they’re closer than we like to admit.

Click on the poster for variations, press left or right to move through countries.

Click on the poster for variations, press left or right to move through countries.

Two carved red sandstone Mughal jali screens with arched tops and a geometric star lattice

Where it started

Where it started

Mughal jali screens let light and views through, but always stand in between. Women often used them to look out without being seen. That tension between protection and confinement shaped this series.

Mughal jali screens let light and views through, but always stand in between. Women often used them to look out without being seen. That tension between protection and confinement shaped this series.

Mughal jali screens let light and views through, but always stand in between. Women often used them to look out without being seen. That tension between protection and confinement shaped this series.

How a poster is carved

How a poster is carved

Each poster is built the way a jali is made: start with solid stone, then cut it away. The data decides how much gets cut.

Each poster is built the way a jali is made: start with solid stone, then cut it away. The data decides how much gets cut.

Each poster is built the way a jali is made: start with solid stone, then cut it away. The data decides how much gets cut.

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The palette · One shade per countryEach country’s stone is cut from its own terracotta, so the seven posters read as one family.
A blank terracotta sandstone slab
A sandstone slab in terracotta. Each country gets its own shade.